Montreal Convention 1999
The Montreal Convention covers almost every international flight on earth and makes the airline liable for baggage and for damage caused by delay. It pays what you can prove you lost, not a fixed sum: up to 1,519 SDR for baggage and 6,303 SDR for delay.
Check your own flight against the Montreal Convention →Who it covers
- International carriage between two party states — 142 of them, which is almost everywhere. It does not apply to a purely domestic flight.
- It applies on top of a compensation statute, not instead of one. A Paris–New York flight is covered by EU261 and by this Convention, and they answer different questions.
- Taiwan is not a party — it is not an ICAO member — and Fiji has not ratified. Those two aside, if your route is international it is almost certainly covered.
What it pays
| Distance or situation | Per passenger |
|---|---|
| Baggage — delayed, damaged or lost | up to 1,519 SDR |
| Damage caused by delay to a passenger | up to 6,303 SDR |
| Death or injury | up to 151,880 SDR strict, unlimited on fault |
What triggers it
Your baggage was delayed, damaged or lost
This is the part no compensation calculator covers properly, and it is the most useful thing the Convention does. The airline is liable up to 1,519 SDR — roughly €1,850 — for what the loss actually cost you. Report it in writing: seven days for damage, twenty-one days for delay, counted from when the bag was put in your hands.
You were delayed and it cost you money
Article 19 makes the carrier liable for damage occasioned by delay unless it proves it took all reasonable measures. This is where a missed hotel night, a lost pre-paid tour or a rebooked onward ticket lives — the things a fixed-sum statute never pays for.
There is no fixed sum, and that is the whole design
Every figure above is a ceiling, not an entitlement. You recover what you evidence, up to the cap. Anyone quoting you a flat Montreal payout is describing a statute that does not exist.
Duty of care — separate from compensation
The Convention says nothing about meals or hotels — it is a liability treaty, not a service standard. Care comes from the regional statute that also reaches your flight. Where none does, the Convention is still the reason you can recover what the delay cost you, against receipts.
The refusals airlines send, and what answers them
“You are outside the time limit”
Check which limit they mean. The notice periods are short — seven days for damaged baggage, twenty-one for delayed — but the period for bringing an action is two years from arrival, and that one cannot be extended by agreement.
“We took all reasonable measures”
That is the Article 19 defence and the burden is on the carrier, not on you. Ask what measures. For baggage there is barely any defence at all: liability for destruction, loss or damage while in the carrier's charge is close to strict.
“Our conditions of carriage cap it lower”
They cannot. Article 26 voids any contractual term that fixes a lower limit than the Convention. A tariff in the small print does not survive it.
Enforcement
There is no regulator for the Convention itself — it is enforced in the courts, and Article 33 lets you choose among five places to sue, including your own principal residence if the carrier flies there. In practice you claim from the airline first and the national enforcement body will often press it alongside its own statute.
How long you have
Two years from the date of arrival, or the date the aircraft should have arrived. This is a hard limit, not an ordinary limitation period a court can relax.
Primary sources
Read the law itself rather than anyone's summary of it, this one included. Every link below was checked on 12 September 2026.
- 2024 revised limits of liability — ICAO (PDF)
- Current list of parties — ICAO (PDF)
- MC99 overview — IATA
By situation, rather than by statute
If you would rather start from what happened than from which law applies: my flight was cancelled · they are blaming a strike · they are blaming a technical fault · I was denied boarding · I am stuck at the airport
The other statutes
- EU261 compensation — EU261
- UK261 compensation — UK261
- Israeli Aviation Services Law — the Aviation Services Law
- US flight delay rules — US DOT rules
- Canada APPR compensation — the APPR
- Russia — Article 120 of the Air Code
- Türkiye — the SHY-Passenger Regulation
- India — the DGCA CAR
- Brazil — ANAC Resolution 400
- Thailand — the CAAT passenger rules
- Indonesia — Ministerial Regulation PM 89
- Saudi Arabia — the GACA customer protection rules